Prominent Journalist Speaks on Israel-Palestine Conflict
Max Blumenthal Speaks Here on Liberal Zionism
A Steelers drumline, a habit-kicking app and more
Some local projects that are currently funding on crowdfunding sites.
“Perks” Filmmaker to Make Local Appearance
Upper St. Clair native Stephen Chbosky hosts “Rocky Horror” screening
Signs of Life
After sitting dormant since 2003, work is ongoing at the former Lord and Taylor Department store.
Heads Up: Morning headlines for Sept. 25
A new city budget … a statewide race gets ugly … and Philly decides to leave Rich Fitzgerald hanging.
Lynn Cullen Live 09/25/12
Video Archive Phone guest: Susan; bad call at the Packers MNF game; anti-union Scott Walker wants the unionized NFL refs back; Ann Romney’s plane filled w/ smoke, Mitt wonders why you can’t open the window; election statistics; Pawlenty left Romney campaign; Toomey turned against bill he co-authored; political bumper stickers & yard signs; Yom Kippur…
Fundraiser includes Wine and Steeler Greats
Clemente Museum hosts fundraiser for art-based initiative
Jim Breuer at the Byham
A review of the comic’s Pittsburgh show last weekend
Jim Breuer at the Byham Theater
Comic is characteristically manic, but dad shtick wears thin
Heads Up: Morning headlines for Sept. 24
Right-wingers coming to a polling place near you … UPMC assembles its empire … and Kevin McClatchy is gay, but that’s not enough to make us like him.
Lynn Cullen Live 09/24/12
Video Archive We live in a nation willing to discard young black men; last week’s hostage situation downtown; 4 Wheel City; yesterday’s Oakland Raiders injury; football’s “playing” field; Michael Chabon’s realization that the world wasn’t racially integrated was in Pittsburgh; Chicago’s teacher strike; Pirates fan has an issue with the Zoltan; Kevin McClatchy is gay,…
Final Weekend for the REP’s “August: Osage County”
Staging of Pulitzer-winner has three more show
Cyclists, Smartphone Users Sought to Combat Air Pollution
CMU, Google, GASP seek volunteers to combat diesel pollution
Heads Up: Morning Headlines for Sept. 21
Dems strike back on voter ID … Pat Toomey gets schooled by Rachel Maddow … and at UPMC, the shitstorm continues.
Lynn Cullen Live 09/21/12
Video Archive Phone guests: Norris & Ricardo from 4 Wheel City; how they met, how they were accidentally shot, how they became an inspirational rap duo; 4 Wheel City performing at the August Wilson Center, Thurs, Sept. 27 @ 7pm, FREE; hostage situation at Gateway Center 3; similarities between Repubs & psychopaths; Tom Sokolowski performs…
Duquesne adjuncts vote for union, still won’t get one any time soon
The United Steelworkers announced this afternoon that pro-union adjunct instructors at Duquesne University, have won a referendum on forming one. Out of 88 adjuncts in the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts, 59 cast a ballot — and all but 9 of those were in favor. But Duquesne will continue to fight against…
Pittsburgh Tattoo Artist Competes On Reality Show
Tattoo Artist Sarah Miller competes on Spike’s “Ink Master”
Chew on THAT, Daryl Metcalfe! County to issue its own voter IDs
Guess what? It turns out that County Executive Rich Fitzgerald might be some sort of ninja. I say that because of a press conference Fitzgerald held late this morning, in which he announced that the county would be issuing its own voter IDs for those who had trouble getting them from the state. Fitzgerald is…
Heads Up: Morning headlines for Sept. 20
Poverty makes a comeback … Daryl Metcalfe: still a jerk … and are Pittsburgh firms engaging in financial shenanigans?
Lynn Cullen Live 09/20/12
Video Archive Guest: Tom Sokolowski; learning the English language isn’t easy; moochers & wasps; Jewish immigrants & the divide between German Jews & other Jews; 1 year anniversary of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell being repealed; bill for Afghan War vet job training & assistance shut down by Republicans; Obama leading polls in every swing state;…
Local cartoonist scores deal for hip-hop book
Ed Piskor’s comic book “Hip Hop Family Tree” due next year
Lotion commotion and harmonica theft in the ‘burbs
Some unusual items from the police blotters of local Patch websites.
The Tag Cloud is the Tag Cloud Week 3
Breaking down Mike Tomlin’s weekly Press conference
Heads Up: Morning headlines for Sept. 19
Voter ID developments … a renewed debate over the death penalty … and just how screwed up IS the PA Cyber School, anyway?
The PCA Artist of the Year makes the most of couple of dogs and some classic literary works
CHARLEE BRODSKY: GOOD DOG continues through Oct. 28. Pittsburgh Center for the Arts 6300 Fifth Ave. Shadyside. 412-361-0873 or pittsburgharts.org Charlee Brodsky is an established figure and then some, a long-time professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a widely exhibited photographer. Her black-and-white prints have often inclined toward the melancholy in subject and tonality: Homestead…
On the Record with Wanda Guthrie of the Thomas Merton Center’s Committee on Environmental Justice
What on Earth a meeting of the Thomas Merton Center’s Environmental Justice Committee 2-5 p.m. Sun., Sept. 23 Friends Meeting House 4836 Ellsworth Ave., Oakland With Marcellus Shale drilling taking hold in Pennsylvania, municipalities like South Fayette and Pittsburgh have enacted their own regulations curtailing it — attracting scrutiny and challenges from the industry. Meanwhile,…
Ron Copeland’s scrap art folds the region’s past into its present
A MOMENT IN TIME: NEW WORKS BY RON COPELAND continues through Sept. 28. ModernFormations Gallery 4919 Penn Ave. Garfield. 412-362-0274 or modernformations.com “These are products of the area,” says artist Ron Copeland, pointing to the reassembled bits of metal signs that make up one of his pieces. “As am I.” Copeland, a native of Canton,…
Balloon Payment
If oil disappeared tomorrow, civilization would halt. That’s not news. But a host of unheralded substances also underpin society as we know it. One of them is helium. The lighter-than-air element was in the news recently after shortages hit the party-balloon business. “People are going to have to change their minds about what a balloon…
800 Words: the Transmigration of Philip K. Dick
800 WORDS: THE TRANSMIGRATION OF PHILIP K. DICK continues through Sept. 30. Caravan Theatre of Pittsburgh at the Pittsburgh Playwrights Theater 937 Liberty Ave. Downtown. $15-20. caravantheatre ofpittsburgh.com You don’t need to know dick — science-fiction author Philip K. Dick, that is — to appreciate the Caravan Theatre of Pittsburgh’s daring new multimedia, multi-dimensional production.…
Jersey Boys
JERSEY BOYS continues through Sept. Sun., 23. Benedum Center 719 Liberty Ave. Downtown. $29-143. 412-456-6666 OK, readers, you have a choice: D’ you wanna read nice things about Jersey Boys (now on tour in Pittsburgh) or bitchy wisecracks about the Benedum audience? My, you are a bunch of vipers, aren’t you? Well, I’m taking the…
The Miser
THE MISER continues through Sat., Sept. 22. Throughline Theatre at Grey Box Theatre 3595 Butler St. Lawrenceville. $15. throughlinetheatre.org About 45 minutes into its first act, The Miser suddenly becomes a comedy. Molière stops introducing new characters, who in turn stop expressing their every thought. The actors loosen up, the gags start to flow, and…
The Pittsburgh Zine Fair proves that hand-made publications still rate
PITTSBURGH ZINE FAIR 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sat., Sept. 22. Carnegie Mellon University Gymnasium CMU campus Oakland. Free. pghzinefair.com Blogs are a practical tool for today’s tech-savvy self-published writers and artists, but the crowded aisles at last year’s inaugural Pittsburgh Zine Fair proved that handmade self-publications are more relevant than ever. In Pittsburgh, local writing collectives…
Strong Impression
Alisa Dix deftly flips business cards in and out of a moving press. Hitting a bar that pauses the big machine, she checks that the lines are just right, the colors lively and appropriate, the impression tactile — so that you can actually feel the words through the card’s back. “Everyone wants that now,” she…
A new art book imagines alien sexual practices with words, pictures and videos
EXPLORING EXTRATERRESTRIAL SEXUALITY screening and release party. 8 p.m. Fri., Sept. 21. Melwood Screening Room 477 Melwood Ave. N. Oakland. Free. encyclopedia destructica.com Until scientists discover definitive evidence of life on other planets, everything about it will remain speculative. And although Hollywood has produced an abundance of memorable fictions about our intergalactic neighbors, one important…
Lynn Cullen Live 09/19/12
Video Archive Guest: Chris Potter; Terrance Williams will be executed in PA, despite staunch opposition; Jesus had a wife; why is our calendar year based on Jesus?; Lee Atwater’s southern strategy; Romney & the 47%; Mary Magdalene’s gospel; Voter ID issues & arguments; Boy Scouts just like the Catholic Church & Penn State; local ice…
Red Hook Summer
Red Hook Summer Directed by: Spike Lee Starring: Clarke Peters, Jules Brown Starts Fri., Sept. 21. Harris Spike Lee’s new drama is a warm, casual, incendiary, explosive slice of life that revolves around Silas Royale, a.k.a. Flik. He’s a bright, well-raised, success-bound 13-year-old boy from Atlanta whose widowed mother takes him to Brooklyn’s Red Hook…
Savage Love
Healthy straight male here. My girlfriend doesn’t like come in her mouth and she feels that doggy-style is objectifying to women. Therefore, we don’t do either. She says she wants to get more comfortable and try these things. But they never seem to happen. These are No. 1 and No. 2 on my list of…
Trouble With the Curve
Trouble With the Curve is the kind of dishonest, sentimental fairy tale you’d expect from a man who talks to empty chairs. It stars Clint Eastwood as Gus, an enervated major-league baseball scout who’s losing his eyesight and who’s fully aware of his decline — which mysteriously gets all better when he needs to use…
The Baby Shower
Six months without cigarettes, six months without drinking, six months without coke (or so you say). Your new husband looks as if he is holding up the bar. The smoke from his cigarette swirls around his head and an upturned glass of vodka and orange juice is attached to his hand. The room is covered…
The Master
In 1950, a troubled World War II vet named Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) stumbles (literally) into the world of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who leads a quasi-spiritual, self-help group known as The Cause. Freddie becomes an acolyte-slash-gofer-slash-drinking-buddy for Dodd, and the pair’s complicated relationship forms the spine of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. Despite…
Short List: September 19 – 25
Time again (albeit a little earlier than usual) for your annual offering of free admissions from the Allegheny Regional Asset District. ARAD uses a portion of the county’s sales tax to support libraries, parks, arts groups and sports facilities, and its annual multi-week thank-you to taxpayers is RADical Days, Sept. 20-Oct. 13. Admittedly, some RADicals…
Original bebop drummer Roy Haynes brings a legacy of playing with the greats
ROY HAYNES. 8 p.m. Sat., Sept. 22. 8 p.m. New Hazlett Theater 6 Allegheny Square East North Side. 412-320-4610 or newhazletttheater.org Photographer Robert Parent once took a photo of a jam session at Greenwich Village’s Open Door club. Reproduced numerous times on posters, T-shirts and blogs, the 1953 image captures a performance by Charlie Parker,…
Up Modern Kitchen
Up Modern Kitchen 5500 Walnut St. Shadyside. 412-688-8220 Hours: Lunch Tue.-Sun. 11 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; dinner Tue.-Thu. 4:30-10 p.m., and Fri.-Sat. 4:30-11 p.m. Prices: Appetizers, soups and salads $5-8; small plates and sandwiches $7-17; entrees $17-36 Liquor:Full bar If the Midwest is the breadbasket of America, California is its vegetable garden, as well as its fruit…
Big Business develops as a band — while playing with The Melvins
BIG BUSINESS with GAY WITCH ABORTION, T-TOPS. 9:30 p.m. Sat., Sept. 22. Brillobox 4104 Penn Ave. Bloomfield. $10-13. 412-621-4900 or brillobox.net When The Melvins’ Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover invited the members of Big Business to fill out their lineup six years ago, it could have turned into a case of the big guy (relatively…
Mid-East Fete: Homemade favorites mark Lebanese food fest
Baked kibbee, lamb kabob, tabouli, saj bread — it’s all on the menu this weekend at the Lebanese Food Festival, held at Our Lady of Victory Maronite Church in Scott Township. One of the last such events of the summer season, the Lebanese Food Festival opened to the public just five years ago. But it’s…
New sound rig makes it easier to get live recordings at Howlers
To be even mildly successful these days, a musician needs to be about as web-savvy as a Huffington Post blogger or Anonymous hacker. Sites like Bandcamp, ReverbNation and SoundCloud help bands promote themselves, but depend on a constant stream of self-uploaded audio and video files, and the stuff has to be good — or at…
Lawrenceville’s Eclipse links past and present
In the winter of 2010, Michelle Trumble and her husband, Kevin, were both laid off from their jobs. They decided to take their lives in a new direction: bar ownership. And as luck would have it, Bill’s Tavern in Lower Lawrenceville was for sale. The building, which has been occupied since 1880, is full of…
Critics’ Picks: September 19 – 25
[POP] + THU., SEPT. 20 While he was never a huge star, especially in the United States, few people in the last quarter of the 20th century wrote such catchy tunes as Nick Lowe. The clever and impish Brit was one of the godfathers of the late-’70s and early-’80s power-pop movement, producing and writing for…
Fall means apples, beer, chili peppers and Farmer Olympics
The still-warm days and growing-cool nights of early fall offer the last round of outdoor food festivals. Here’s a few noteworthy ones: It’s the third annual Mother Earth News Fair this weekend at Seven Springs Resort, but this will be the inaugural year for the Farmer Olympics. In this contest, local famers take on such…
On the Record with Laetitia Sadier
LAETITIA SADIER with RIVKA. 9 p.m. Wed., Sept. 26. Thunderbird Café 4033 Butler St. Lawrenceville. $10-12. 412-682-0177 or thunderbirdcafe.net Laetitia Sadier fronted Stereolab, the French band known for its effervescent, Moog-centric grooves in the ’90s and ’00s. Silencio, her second solo album, retains her characteristically breezy melodies and dark lyrics, in songs like “Auscultation to…
Shaky Ground: Farmer fears for future as gas drilling begins near scores of abandoned well sites
Sitting in the front seat of her navy-blue pickup truck, Maggie Henry can’t believe her eyes. “They’re moving so fast,” she exclaims as workers buzz around the Lawrence County location that is known, in permits and legal proceedings, as the Kephart well site. Two weeks ago, she says, “The field was empty, and now look…
PA Supreme Court throws up Voter ID roadblock
After hearing oral arguments on the VoterID bill last week, the state Supreme Court, in a 4-2 decision, has decided … not to decide. At least not yet. In an unsigned opinion, the court’s three Republican judges joined with Democrat Max Baer to send the case back to Commonwealth Court Robert Simpson for another hearing.…
